


come back to the sea

by liionne



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 1930s, Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Don't do it, Inspired by Art, M/M, Post-Black Panther (2018), Stucky through the mcu, amazingly, if you haven't seen that Black Panther end credit scene though, no IW spoilers!, not a single one, otherwise!, this is an Infinity War spoiler free zone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-05-01 09:38:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14517660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liionne/pseuds/liionne
Summary: "Best friends since childhood, Bucky Barnes and Steven Rogers were inseparable on both schoolyard and battlefield. Barnes is the only Howling Commando to give his life in service of his country."





	come back to the sea

**Author's Note:**

> Based on [this frankly gorgeous artwork](http://lightningstrikes-art.tumblr.com/post/173446085239/old-souls). 
> 
> title is from Ina Wroldsen's _Sea_
> 
> And as stated in the tags: this work is 100% Infinity War spoiler-free.

“They’re for you, y’know.”

“Shut up, Buck, I ain’t twelve anymore.” Steve scolds, his head tipped back just a little so he can see more of the sky, the fireworks erupting in front of them.

They’ve been doing this for as long as Steve can remember. It began back when his ma was alive and she had the money for a cupcake for his birthday but not to get them down to Coney Island, so she’d sit them carefully on the fire escape (because Steve and Bucky were always together, always a "them", as long as Steve could remember, just the same) and let them watch the fire escape. Back then they’d both believed that the fireworks were for Steve, until they'd had that one history class and Bucky had passed Steve notes with real shitty jokes on to try and cheer him up when he looked woefully disappointed.

Bucky never did complain that there were no fireworks for him, though.

"You're such a cynic, Stevie, do you know how long it takes me to set this up every year? Know how many hoops I gotta jump through? Be grateful, punk."

Bucky bumps him with his shoulder so Steve jostles him in turn, the two of them knocking around until they settle, their shoulders pressed together, their back to their too-small, too-cold apatment.

Bucky slips an arm around his shoulders, tucking Steve against his side. He doesn't much like being as short and skinny as he is, but nestled against Bucky's shoulder, he thinks he doesn't mind it too much. The warmth of his body, the sweet, musky smell of his skin. No, he doesn't mind. He wishes they could do it more often.

~*~

Steve is battered and bruised to hell, but he's alive. Not well, maybe, but alive, and he always considers that a victory. The helicarrier is falling down around him, the Triskellion too, but it doesn't matter. He finds that he doesn't care.

He looks across the banks of the Potomac and sees Bucky, looking equally as beaten up but equally as alive. He looks at Steve for a long moment and then he sags, whatever weight was on his shoulders easing away, and he moves over to Steve, arm slipping under his shoulders.

"You should go to hospital." Bucky says, his eyes ahead of him. Steve really wishes that he could do that, walk along like a cool guy, not looking at the exploding helicarrier and the bits of debris raining down around them. What's that thing Nat made him watch? _Cool guys don't look at explosions_. Bucky isn't looking, but then Steve supposes that he isn't either - he can't take his eyes away from Bucky, alive, and so very present, even if he looks more than a little confused, like he's not sure why he's doing what he's doing.

Steve doesn't care, so long as he keeps doing it. The metal arm around him his a strange sensation, only in that it doesn't feel too disimilar to any other arm. "I've had worse." He says. Shrugs. Groans.

"Hospital." Bucky growls. He pauses and blinks, shocked by the noise just as much as Steve had been. Steve chuckles softly, his arm slipping around Bucky in turn. He wants to feel that he's real. Wants to hold him, just in case he disappears again.

"Fine, bud, hospital." He says, the shield feeling heavy on his other arm. Steve is still looking at Bucky, almost frightened to blink. "You gonna be there when I get out?"

"I don't know." Bucky admits. Either Steve's internally bleeding again or that wounds him, somewhere deep inside; probably both. He's glad that Bucky is honest, though. He doesn't want false hope.

"But you're still going." He adds. "I'll make that wing-guy take you there myself. Who is he, anyway?"

"He's a good guy." Steve assures him. "Thanks, Buck."

Bucky leaves him when he spies Steve's friends, disappearing into the shadows. Steve remembers the arm around his shoulder as he finally lets the pain and the fatigue claim him, dragging him into unconsciousness.

~*~

They're in a grimy warehouse in the middle of nowhere, because it was the only place the two of them could think of to take him until he had snapped out... whatever it was.

"You know we're in deep shit now, right?" Sam murmurs. "We were in deep shit before, but this, this is-- our lives are over. This is it. You sure he's worth it?"

Steve wants to grab him by the shoulders and _shake_. He wants to hiss at him _Don't you see? He's worth everything, he's worth the entire world and more. I'll set everything ablaze if I have to, if it keeps him safe and well._

He doesn't do any of that.

He looks out of a gap in the wall, until Sam calls for him. He listens to Bucky telling him about his mother, and his too-big shoes, and he gives a watery kind of smile. Can't even blame it on the allergies anymore.

So to hide his sniffling he moves to take Bucky's arm out of the vice, listens to him talk about Siberia and the other soldiers. No, it isn't good, but he gets to stand closer to Bucky than he has in years. Two years, to be exact, since the fall of SHIELD and HYDRA along with them.

Sam says he knows a guy, so he goes to make a call. Steve asks Bucky if he wants some fresh air, because he hasn't seen daylight in a hell of a long time, and when Bucky nods he leads him to a back door. He scans the sky once, the horizon, but there's no one there. No one suspects. Steve leads him outside into the sunshine, and Bucky turns his face towards it like a sunflower - when Steve sits down on the steps, arms wrapped around his knees, Bucky sits down too.

"Wilson doesn't trust me." He says.

Steve smiles sadly. Just because Steve would trust Bucky with his life, doesn't mean he expects everyone else to. "He doesn't have any reason to."

Bucky nods. Steve doesn't look at him this time because he doesn't want Bucky to feel like he's being stared at. He doesn't put his arm around him because he doesn't want him to feel like he's being restrained. He keeps his arms tight around himself and he keeps watch, letting Bucky enjoy it.

"Did I hurt you?" He asks softly. Steve has to look over at him because it was so soft, he wonders if it was just a murmur on the wind.

Steve shakes his head. "No, Buck. You never have."

Bucky snorts softly. "I'm the reason you broke your arm, remember?"

Bucky, asking _him_  if he remembers, that's rich - but Steve doesn't think they're at the point to joke about it yet, so he keeps his mouth shut. Thinks of an _actual_  response to his question. "When I was seven?"

"Yeah. Made you climb that tree, 'n you fell out, 'n cracked it clean in half." Bucky murmurs.

"I don't think it was that bad." Steve argues.

"I saw bone, I remember." Bucky insists.

"You did _not_ , it was fine." Steve snorts. "And anyway, it wasn't your fault. I wanted to climb that tree." Bucky rolls his eyes, like he's sick of Steve placating him - again, rich. This is only their third conversation in two years. "When did I ever do something I didn't want to do?"

Bucky smiles gently. He looks at the ground. "That's the impression I'm getting." He says, bumping their shoulders lightly. It feels good. Steve is about to wind an arm around him cautiously but then Sam calls for him again. He sighs softly, and stands. They have too many places to be.

~*~

Steve's uniform is old and dusty but he can't get any new tac gear, not without someone turning him in, and anyway - this stuff is still good quality. He's had to make some adjustments (he pulled the star off for a start), but it's still good.

He looks at himself briefly in the mirror, and huffs. There's nothing he can do about the too-long hair and the thick beard, which are both the product of a need for anonymity and a lack of scissors rather than any kind of stylistic choice. He looks so much older, and he knows it. He looks worn, run down, but what can he do? That's what he is. Old and worn and dusty, just like his uniform.

"Captain Rogers, your boyfriend will think you're beautiful no matter what. Come on - we must go." Shuri calls from the other side of the bathroom door. Steve wants to make some kind of argument, but there are two many points to correct her on, so he just huffs, and opens the door.

"Just Steve." He says.

Shuri smiles gently. "You colonisers are very informal. Come on, we haven't got all day."

Bucky lives by a lake, in a shaded spot with a few other huts. It's kind of nice, Steve thinks. Bucky never wanted a quiet life before - way before, before Steve became a fugitive, before Bucky became a weapon, before Steve.... also became a weapon, but a weapon that wasn't as bad because it was American, or something, before all of that - but he can understand the desire for it now.

"Bucky!" Shuri calls. Steve blinks. He doesn't know why he finds it strange, but he does. No one ever calls Bucky... well, Bucky. Not since the aforementioned before. "Oo, you are going to love me today, White Wolf!"

Steve arches an eyebrow - he doesn't get it. Something ugly twists inside of him; Shuri knows something about Bucky that Steve doesn't. Bucky has a life outside of him.

Oh, that's selfish. But it still makes him feel like shit.

Bucky appears in the doorway of one of the huts, having to duck in order to clear the low entryway. He's frowning, confused. A look that Steve is starting to get used to.

When he sees Steve, though, he breaks into a dazzling grin. Steve's stomach starts doing somersaults.

"Steve," He says.

"Hey, Buck." Steve murmurs.

They meet in the middle, arms winding around each other - or arm, in Bucky's case. He still only has the one, which weirdly doesn't surprise Steve. He knows how much Bucky hated the other one.

"I didn't know you were coming." Bucky breathes into his shoulder.

Steve shifts a little bit, doing his best not to nuzzle into him. He smells different, now. Earthy, strangely familiar - it reminds Steve of the war, the first one, when they slept on the ground and made camp in the mountains. It's kind of nice.

"Wanted to surprise you." Steve murmurs.

It was definitely worth it.

"You two should go and see the sunset. Bucky, take him to the Great Mound, it isn't far from here." Shuri says, watching them for a small ways away. "I have to speak with a few people anyway."

It's a blessing of some kind; Bucky nods, giving Steve one final squeeze before pulling away and turning. "Come with me."

They walk for a while, talk intermittently. There's so much that could be said but Steve just can't stop looking at him, marvelling over him. He looks so _good_. So healthy and so happy, perhaps a little more angular than he used to be, a little more lithe, but it's good. He looks not too unlike the Bucky he once was; he wonders if Bucky knows that.

"The sunsets here - ain't nothing like it, Stevie." Bucky says, leading them up whatever this place is so that the two of them can get a good vantage point. They sit down at a ledge, their feet dangling over the edge of it, comfortable in their silence.

The artist in Steve is screaming at him to grab a water colour palette, to grab some pencils, _something_ , to capture the vibrant shades of oranges and yellows and pinks that set the sky on fire as the sun slips slowly beneath the horizon. The rest of him, though, screams at him to look at Bucky - so that's what he does, gaze lingering on him even as Bucky looks at the sunset.

"I never got to see many of these, before." He says. "Seventy years, in 'n out of cryo. I must've seen the sunset, like, twice."

Steve is still so amazed by him. He remembers the man with his arm trapped in a vice, who Steve'd had to wrestle to the ground; he remembers the man who had looked at him, bewildered and broken. He's seen Bucky at various points throughout this journey, this arc away from HYDRA, towards freedom. It seems like he might finally be there, at the end.

And he did all of it without Steve.

"The sunsets here... it's like you could reach out and touch 'em." Bucky continues. "And you - you ain't even looking at it."

Steve blinks, sits up a little bit. Oh, shit. He's been caught. Bucky laughs under his breath, shakes his head. "I know I look a little... wild."

"'s not my place to talk." Steve says, running a hand self-consciously through his too-long hair.

Bucky reaches up, tugs on a strand of it. He runs his fungertips over Steve's cheek, where the skin meets the coarse hair of his beard, and he smiles gently. "You realise making yourself look rugged and handsome makes people wanna look at you more, right?"

Steve's body has the audacity to betray him, his cheeks flushing pink. Now he does set his gaze on the horizon, trying to catch his breath and failing when he feels Bucky's head land on his shoulder, nestling there.

Before it had been Steve who had tucked himself up against Bucky's side, Steve would had wormed his way in and cuddled up. Bucky does it now like it's second nature; maybe he'd been paying attention all those years.

"You gonna stay a while?" Bucky asks.

"For as long as you'll have me." Steve murmurs.

Steve feels Bucky smile against his shoulder. "Forever, then."

"Forever." Steve agrees.

**Author's Note:**

> I could write about Bucky being happy and healthy in Wakanda for approximately 1000 years.
> 
> I'm currently working on something also IW-spoiler free (actually set between the end of CA:WS and the end of CA:CW), which I'm not sure anyone really wants but that my heart demands. 
> 
> However, if you want to see more of one of my previously uploaded fics, please send in prompts, or things you'd like to see, either on this work or [at my tumblr](http://liionne.tumblr.com) because whilst there are many new AUs I have ideas for, I'm too tired/busy to really get to fleshing out the world for them, but I want to keep writing. So, if you wanted more of [actor bucky](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14177343), [stucky and dogs](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14069457), or literally any AU (legit, any of them, don't be shy) let me know!
> 
> Thanks for reading <3


End file.
